Marsha Mehran Quotes

It would be easy to attribute Layla's effect on the opposite sex (and the occasional Sapphically inclined female) to her youth or sweet, natural perfume, but the real reason behind her attraction was far more complex. Of course, there was no denying her beauty, the consistency of her angled, porcelain features, that tilt in her almond eyes, which shined like half-moons across her celestial face. Unlike her two older sisters, who sported wayward brown ringlets, Layla had hair that was long and jet black. Tied up or let down, moussed or gelled, nothing could excite her stubbornly straight locks. They were a definite throwback to some latent Oriental chromosomes roaming deep inside of her.

Let the kettle boil slowly...
For stew boiled in haste is of no use to anyone.

Unlike the classical Greeks, for whom the fruit symbolized the inescapable cycle of bitter death, with a remorseful Persephone returning to the underworld for her six months of required winter, Marjan liked to believe the old stories of Persian soothsayers, who held a different vision of the tart fruit's purpose in life. She liked to remember that above all else, above all the unfortunate connotations of death and winter, the pomegranate was, and always would be, the fruit of hope.
The flower of fertility, of new things and old seasons to be cradled.

Recently painted a deep plum color, the shutters folded back across the glass like a gentle accordion. As they did, a large bay window, framed by hanging baskets of wispy honeysuckle and Persian jasmine, revealed itself to the morning sun. The flowers in the baskets matched the dewy blossoms planted in two deep barrels directly below the ledge.

A woman isn't something to be used for as long as she has flavor, then tossed aside when your taste for her is gone. There's got to be some promise, some agreement that you'll be around."
Marjan's embarrassment had reached combustible levels. "Isn't Father Mahoney waiting for you?" She threw her sister an icy glance. "Don't want to be late for your lesson."
Julian did not seem at all perturbed by Bahar's interrogation. In fact, he seemed to be rather enjoying it. "I couldn't agree with you more. 'The Beloved is all, the Lover just a veil.'"
Bahar shook her head. "It'll take a lot more than poetry to impress. Every schoolkid knows his Rumi."
"Ah, but 'whatever is in the heart will come up to the tongue.' Isn't that what the old Persians used to say?